They are from Minas Gerais, Brazil, but their ballet crosses borders. Brazil as a whole, with all its cultural diversity, can see itself in GRUPO CORPO, the dance company founded in 1975 in Belo Horizonte. In a world where the speed of information is producing an increasingly homogeneous landscape, they stand out for having developed a signature of their own.

There are three basic reasons for the uniqueness of the company in the contemporary dance scene. First, there is Rodrigo Pederneiras, the house choreographer: one of the few able to mix classic ballet and folk dances and then set to motion bodies that push the limits of technical rigor. Second, the wisdom with which Paulo Pederneiras transforms choreography into a dance artwork. Besides directing the company, he signs the scenography and lighting designs that customize the scenic finishing for each production with a kind of quality that continues to introduce new references. Part of those are the costumes by Freusa Zechmeisteir, result of a skill capable of translating chothing into movement. And third, there is a balanced cast of dancers, stars in their own right, fine-tuning each other with exquisite precision.

When one sees GRUPO CORPO dance on stage it is as if all questions concerning the transit between nature and culture were being fully answered. All facets of Brazil, past and future, erudite and popular, foreign influence and local color, and the urban and the suburban come to being as art. Brazilian art. World art.

Helena Katz

DANÇA SINFÔNICA

choreography Rodrigo Pederneiras

music Marco Antônio Guimarães

costume design Freusa Zechmeister

lighting Paulo Pederneiras and Gabriel Pederneiras

Created to celebrate GRUPO CORPO’s 40th anniversary [2015], Dança Sinfônica is built on the memorialist theme proposed by Artistic Director, Paulo Pederneiras. In this first symphony created especially for the Minas Gerais dance company, Marco Antônio Guimarães, the author of anthological works such as 21 (1992) and Bach (1996), combines a sophisticated plot with original pieces and evocative musical passages from ballets recently produced by GRUPO CORPO. The set of themes, written masterfully for the 90-member Philharmonic Orchestra of Minas Gerais, and interconnected by ingenious musical bridges performed by the Uakti group, allows Rodrigo Pederneiras to revisit the best works from the group’s entire repertoire, and also to process, with the experience accumulated through decades of working on detachment of form, a kind of synthesis of a choreographic scripture assembled over 34 years of residence at the company.

PARABELO

choreography Rodrigo Pederneiras

music Tom Zé and José Miguel Wisnik

costumes Freusa Zechmeister

lighting Paulo Pederneiras

The country side inspiration and the resulting contemporary sound track, written by Tom Zé and José Miguel Wisnik, for 1997’s Parabelo, prompted the choreographer from Grupo Corpo to bring into life that, which he himself refers to, as his "most Brazilian and regional" creation.

From working and devotion chants, from the memory of the rhythmic baião and from the exuberant and an ever present, entangled, rhythmic points and counterpoints, emerges choreography full of hip swaying and feet stamping. It’s a ravishing statement of maturity and of the expressive teachings, developed throughout many years, by the maker of Missa do Orfanato and Sete ou Oito Peças para um Ballet.

With the intensity of the colors unveiled only in the small and imperative space of the ballet slippers, costume designer Freuse Zechmeister, creates the set of lights and shadows that "dress" the dancers in the first part of PARABELO. And at the explosive ballet finale, the leotards are freed from the veil, showing off the joyous, high temperatures of their colors.